I'm always struck by the poetic nature of Hindi, especially in the variety of ways the language describes how things are seen. To see something, in the sense of actively placing your eyes on an object, takes the verb देखना "to see" (roughly dekh-na). In my personal experience in India, I've found one looks actively at something while taking in all the visual details and creating a firm mental impression of an object or scene. In the US we'd consider it staring, but I prefer to think of it as making a physical connection with someone or something else through sight. To show something to someone else is a related verb, दिखाना "to show" (dikh-a-na). दिखाना is a compulsive verb, in the sense that you are compelling someone else to see something, or choosing to have someone else see something in a particular way. दिखना "to appear" (dikh-na) is intransitive. No one is causing something to appear or to be seen in a particular way. Instead it appears as it exists. These three verbs are all poetic explorations of the ways we see, are seen, and present ourselves and the world to others, yet also appear as we actually are, one small part of the world around us.
